MANAGING SCATTERED SITE HOUSING FIRST, HARM REDUCTION HOUSING CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

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1 MANAGING SCATTERED SITE HOUSING FIRST, HARM REDUCTION HOUSING CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

2 PRESENTERS Michael Banghart Executive Director - Renaissance Social Services Britt Shawver Chief Executive Officer - Housing Opportunities for Women

3 The Current Regulatory and Housing Environment HUD pushing grantees to move to master leasing in order to have operating funding in their grants. Tax credit buildings will not master lease because IRS says that lease must be in the tenants name. Update Safe and affordable housing is becoming increaasingly scarce in our communities. Centers for Medicaid and Medicare have stated that funding for housing services is allowable but cannot pay for housing itself. What challenges are you having in providing housing in your area?

4 Other Factors Scattered Site Housing First is very challenging: Must have your housing resources ready for when a participant is ready for housing. Developing a variety of housing options is important. (landlords who will and will not do a background check, in areas where a sex offender can actually live, etc.) Is there a way to bridge between homelessness and when their lease is finalized. How do you implement Harm Reduction in scattered site housing? Maintaining housing is an important part of reducing harm being homeless is a high risk situation. More prone to being a victim of violence. It is important to communicate expectations with the participant around how to keep their housing and their motivation for staying housed. Staff training and support is extremely important. Team work Managing risky situations Communication

5 The Landlord Relationship Developing the Relationship Outreach to landlords Brochures, Other service providers, referrals from city housing department, local churches, canvas the area. Other ways? Service providers have a lot to offer landlords. We need to make the case: Guaranteed rent, 24 assistance if there is a problem with our program participants, Referral source for other tenants, non-clients, Help avoid evictions eviction prevention, Community building activities, GOOD COMMUNICATION responsive to landlords and work together for common goals.

6 The Landlord Relationship What we need from landlords: GOOD COMMUNICATION responsive to services staff and work together for common goals safe, clean building where tenants pay rent on time and get along. Clear expectations and guidelines for the tenant and landlord. Landlord needs to ensure everyone follows their lease expectations and consistently enforces the rules. Responsiveness to maintenance issues. Work with Supportive Service staff on any eviction prevention issues. Treat our tenants the same as any tenants with the understanding that they may have some special needs and may need some flexibility. Good cop bad cop. What are the expectations around alcohol, drugs in the building? Is there drug testing, background checks, etc.

7 Eviction Prevention Form Eviction Prevention Meeting: Date Time: In what ways will the Team Leader or Director of Programs follow up to ensure that the necessary corrections have been made? Problem Corrective Step Due Date In attendance: What is the reason for the Eviction Prevention Meeting? (Site specific rule or lease violations) In what ways will the tenant correct the behavior? I have read, understand, and agree with the above. Tenant Date Problem Corrective Step Due Dat Case Manager Date Outreach Team Leader Date In what way will the Case Manager assist the tenant in correcting this behavior? Problem Corrective Step Due Dat

8 The Changing Relationship with Program Participants Master leasing is making scattered site Supportive Housing providers shift from being a support to being a surrogate landlord collecting rent changes the relationship, especially when you are working with housing first harm reduction. The relationship with the scattered site client works better when there is some separation between landlord and service provider. Avoiding staff when cant pay rent, Placing blame on service provider for building issues, Eviction service provider is evicted or tenant. If you can create some arms-length relationship or division of duties or a separate program you can at least have the perception on the part of the client that the service provider is their advocate. How do you manage those relationships within your organization, the tension between collecting rent and keeping the client housed? This gets to your philosophy and mission.

9 Meeting Your Needs Through Collaboration The Back Office Housing Collaborative BOHC Designed to correct the structural funding/supportability issues that many mid-sized homeless serving non-profits face. The partners in this collaboration currently operate approximately 800 units of housing. Programs are unique with diverse funding sources Serve diverse populations that includes non-homeless populations (low-income) Focused on meeting the needs of scattered site housing.

10 Meeting Your Needs Through Collaboration Organizations have cobbled together housing and accounting software packages, sometimes Excel spreadsheets, which are not integrated across the enterprise resulting in multiple inputs of the same data, inefficient use of staff time and resulting reduced service levels for our residents. Across the supportive housing Industry, organizations have created similar, inefficient and redundant management structures, to provide the necessary programmatic services. Management structures drive the increasing operating cost for organizations. Disjointed data management systems encumber organizations decision making process Organizations that provide housing services to homeless populations must find new ways to achieve maximum programmatic and back office efficiencies while improving their ability to provide effective support services and comply with all applicable regulatory expectations and reporting.

11 The Back Office Housing Collaborative (BOHC) Housing Opportunities for Women, Good News Partners, Renaissance Social Services, Inc. and La Casa Norte. End goal of the Collaborative is to create a Special Purpose Entity (SPE) to manage and report on the combined properties of the collaborative member agencies. An Operating Design Committee was formed, consisting of staff members of the participating agencies. Began with an assessment of each agencies finance, accounting and asset property operations, including information systems, staff duties, client needs, and reporting issues. Completed a comparative market analysis of available products, the Collaborative voted to jointly purchase Yardi software to manage the property inventory.

12 The Back Office Housing Collaborative (BOHC) The Operating Design Committee assessed reporting and compliance needs; identified needed customization components; and developed the assessment protocol and implementation strategies. Design team members shepherd the project from assessment to implementation to fully operational. The second task is the implementation phase where data is migrated to the Yardi software, staff is trained, and leadership and staff of the SPE is hired under the guidance of a project manager paid for by a local foundation. Back Office Housing Collaboration will provide one administrative office which all agencies will purchase services from. Existing staff will be re-purposed to leverage new opportunities commensurate with growth or downsized. Mandatory compliance reporting will be done more efficiently utilizing the enterprise wide software. Senior management of each organization will have access to the most current data to inform their decision making.

13 The Back Office Housing Collaborative (BOHC) The cost of the new SPE will be borne by the participating partner agencies on a pro-rata share of the total number of housing units. The savings of the collaborative are projected to exceed $400,000 annually for the combined agencies.